


Lancelot del Incendio

by Onehelluvapilot



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Burns, Firefighters, Fires, Getting Together, Gwaine is an utter gentleman and Lancelot is confused, Hurt Lancelot (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Protective Gwaine (Merlin), Whump, no beta we die like women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23780128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Lancelot, a firefighter of the Camelot Firehouse, wasn't expecting to encounter a fire off-duty, but when he does, it'll bring him closer to his friends, and one man in particular.
Relationships: Gwaine/Lancelot (Merlin)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	1. The Fire

Some loud noise outside of his apartment woke Lancelot up at around three in the morning. Grumbling about how his nights off were supposed to be restful, he rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. He might have too, if not for the unusual smell creeping into the apartment. It took him way too long to recognize it as smoke. He was a firefighter, for Christ’s sake, he berated himself internally as he jumped out of bed. Fire should have been the first thing that came to mind, even though the fire alarm had apparently malfunctioned. Except for whatever noise had first woken him up, everything was perfectly quiet, which probably meant the other residents of the apartment block didn’t even know about the danger yet.

Lancelot made his way quickly out of his apartment. He didn't think to test the temperature of his doorknob before grabbing it, but thankfully it wasn't hot. As soon as he opened the door he started coughing and sweating. This was no little kitchen fire. He could see flames down at the bottom of the stairwell, already licking their way up the steps to the upper balcony and cutting off the possibility of escape down that way. It was too large and burning too fiercely for a fire extinguisher to put much of a dent in.

He started banging on doors, starting with his next door neighbor Maria. She had three little kids who she was reading l raising on her own. “Maria! Levántate! Incendio!” He knew she didn't speak a whole lot of English, and if she'd just woken up it would be easier for her to figure out what he's saying if he said it in her native tongue. 

He knew he couldn't wait for her to get up and stumble to the door before he moved on to wake the other neighbors. The next apartment in the line was uninhabited, but the one beyond that had a middle-aged nurse and past that were a young couple. He pounded on their doors, repeating himself in English this time. “Get up! There's a fire!”

The nurse opened the door first, her eyes going wide as she took in the situation. “Oh god. How are we gonna get out?”

“Your back window is right over the dumpster, right?” Lancelot asked. He remembered her complaining about the smell in the summer. She nodded. “We can drop down onto it.” He left her to go get the window open as a scream sounded from the next door. The woman of the young couple, who was heavily pregnant, stood at the door staring at the flames. “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm and pushing her into the nurse’s apartment before going back for her husband.

“What the hell are you-” the man asked, clearly still disoriented from being woken up, before Lancelot cut him off.

“There’s a fire and I’m getting you out of here,” he explained quickly as he led the couple through the nurse’s apartment to the back. She had already gotten the window open and jumped down to the alley. “You go first so you can catch your wife; I’ll help her out from this side.” Lancelot had to help her through the window and it was a bit of a tight squeeze, but between the two men they were able to get her safely out onto the dumpster. 

“The Mexican woman and her kids are trapped!” the nurse yelled up to him. Lancelot, having forgotten Maria and her family in the chaos, had been planning on jumping down after the couple, but he couldn't very well do that now. He ran back out to the corridor in the front. Flames already licked across the floor and had completely engulfed the bannister to his right. This whole section was probably unstable already. Maria had left her door open, which he couldn’t help but be glad for even though it allowed the apartment to be flooded with thick smoke.

The woman was banging on the back window, praying in rapid Spanish. Her three little kids, a five year old boy and twin three year old girls, were all crying, clutching at the bottom of her nightgown. Lancelot shoved her to the side, not having enough time to be polite about it, and shoved at the window himself. The lock was off but it didn't budge, even when he put his full weight against it. They were trapped by the stuck glass. He couldn’t take them out the way he had come; the balcony could collapse at any moment and they would all be burned anyway.

Not knowing if he had the strength, Lancelot grabbed a sheet off one of the beds and wrapped it around his hand before slamming it as hard as he could into the window. It bounced off. He hit it again, desperation making him strong. It didn't help. The window was too thick. Lancelot cursed his lack of an axe as Maria took a more productive route. She pulled her crying children back to keep them away from the broken glass before taking up a wooden kids high chair and smashing it through the window. Lancelot punched out the worst of the glass shards while she grabbed a blanket to put over the window frame so they wouldn’t cut themselves climbing out. The young man from the apartment down the way came over to help, and with a rapid conversation Lancelot managed to convince her to go first and he would look after her niños. They were all taken out of the burning building quickly, lowered and then dropped slightly into the man's arms to be passed off to their mother. Then Lancelot jumped out himself, barely avoiding slashing himself on the broken glass.

He landed hard and didn't allow himself a second. Quickly running around to the parking lot in the front, he made a quick head count. Thank God he’d made an effort to get to know everyone in the building. Even with the neighbors standing around confusing the count, he came up one resident short.

“Where’s Mr. Jameson?” He asked himself as he failed to spot the man’s wheelchair among the crowd. “Where’s Mr. Jameson?” He repeated, louder this time. The striken looks on the other resident’s faces as they looked up at him told him all he needed to know. A quick glance at the old man’s apartment (first floor, on the end) showed that the flames hadn’t quite reached it yet but the staircase in front of it was nearly completely alight.

There were sirens audible at the very edge of his hearing, but he estimated it would be another five minutes until they reached them and another fire until they were cleared to go into the building. That staircase didn’t have ten minutes until it collapsed and trapped Mr. Jameson inside.

Lancelot ran back into the burning building. He seared his hand on the hot doorknob but brushed through the pain as he shoved into the apartment. Through the thick smoke, he could just barely make out a figure on the carpet struggling to haul himself back into his wheelchair. Mr. Jameson. He must’ve fallen in his haste to get out of the apartment.

“Hold still, I’ve got you,” he assured the man as he bent down to pick him up. Being extra careful with the frail old man, he slung him into a fireman’s carry and began to make his way back out of the apartment.

He must’ve been inside longer than he thought, because a fire truck was parked in the street and one firefighter was already hosing down the edges of the building. Something groaned above him, barely audible over the crackling of the flames, and Lancelot’s instincts propelled him forward just in time to avoid the collapse of the staircase leading to the second story. For half a second, his knees threatened to go out from under him in relief, but he couldn’t drop Mr. Jameson and forced himself to keep walking. A couple of actual, on-duty firefighters met him in the parking lot and took the old man from him to carry to an ambulance that was just arriving. 

Lancelot quickly scanned around him, re-checking his head count to make sure everyone had gotten out safely. His eyes caught on Maria, who seemed to be struggling to calm all of her children and also bandage a cut on her hand with her nightgown. He started towards her until a firefighter appeared directly in front of him, stopping his forward motion with two hands on his shoulder.

“You need to sit down,” the man said, and Lancelot knew that voice but couldn’t place it.

“I’m fine, I’m a firefighter too, I can help,” he replied. His own voice sounded hoarse in his ears.

“Lance, for Christ’s sake, sit down,” Gwaine ordered more forcefully. Shocked by hearing his own name, even more shocked by the realization that it was his own team that had responded to the fire, his legs practically went out from under him and he sat down hard on the curb. He hadn’t recognized Gwaine, why hadn’t he recognized him? “Easy, Lance, you’re in shock. I’m gonna go get an oxygen mask for you. Don’t move.”

Lancelot couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. He suddenly couldn’t breathe and bent over coughing. His head was aching as well and in that and his confusion, he recognized the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. The coughing fit had just abated when Gwaine returned with an oxygen mask. He took it with shaky hands he only realized were burned when he saw the skin was blackened.

“Just breathe, okay? You breathed in a lot of smoke. Do you remember who I am now?” Lance nodded weakly. “Okay, good. You scared me a little there. I gotta go check on some other people, but I’ll be back soon, I promise. Keep that oxygen mask on.” Gwaine patted Lancelot’s shoulder gently as he stood up, and when more ambulances arrived, he called one of the medics over and let them take care of his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear any feedback you have about the fic.


	2. The Hospital

"Knock knock," Gwaine announced his presence in the curtained-off hospital 'room'. Lancelot looked up at the noise and smiled. He had a cannula now instead of an oxygen mask and was wearing a hospital gown. There was still soot visible in his thick curly hair. "I can't stay long; Arthur has me pulling a double and I’m due back soon."

"Covering my shift," Lance guessed. His voice sounded awful, but the fact that he was talking at all was a good sign. It meant that the smoke damage in his upper throat wasn't too severe and he probably hadn't needed to be intubated.

"Yeah, I guess I probably am." There was no chair in the makeshift room, so Gwaine leaned against the hospital bed beside his friend's hip. He held the large paper bag he had brought in up in Lancelot’s view before setting it down near him. "I brought you some clothes from the firehouse so your ass isn't hanging out of your hospital gown."

"I thought you said I have a nice ass."

"You do. That's why I wanna keep it for myself." Gwaine was a notorious flirt and he and Lancelot had had  _ something _ going on for as long as anyone could remember. "How're you feeling?"

"Better," Lancelot said, shifting a little against the pillows that he was propped up with. "I'm still a little nauseous and headachy from the carbon monoxide but the doctors say that'll clear up soon. They're holding off on a lung damage prognosis for now."

"What about the burns?" Gwaine asked, gesturing to where his hands and forearms were wrapped with gauze. He had been reaching out to hold his friend's hand before he noticed the bandages.

"Mostly 2nd degree, minimal scarring predicted. The cuts on my feet are a lot worse than the burns."

"Wait, so you were  _ barefoot  _ when you ran back into a burning building?” Somehow he had missed that detail at the scene of the fire. He was probably too caught up in trying to get the off-duty firefighter to sit down before he passed out to notice his lack of footwear. If he had noticed it, getting him off his cut-up feet would have felt even more urgent. “Jesus Christ, Lancelot. You should have waited for us to get there."

The injured firefighter shook his head. "Mr. Jameson has a lung condition. The smoke would've killed him before you got there."

"It could've killed you too. Almost did. I saw how close that staircase was to coming down on top of you."

"I know. And I knew the risks. But I wasn't gonna let a man die if I could stop it. Given the options, I'd make the same choice again."

"You stubborn, noble idiot." Unable to hold Lancelot's hand, Gwaine instead leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to the man's forehead. Beyond the stench of hospital disinfectant, he smelled like wood smoke. Suddenly the room felt too small. He shouldn't have done that, not now of all times. "I gotta go. I'll come back as soon as I can." Gwaine had fled before Lancelot gathered enough breath to protest.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	3. Firehouse

Arthur sighed as he drove home from the site of the apartment building fire. The blaze had taken nine hours to burn out, nine hours of mostly waiting and worrying. Watching Lancelot stumble out of the building had been one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of his life. If the man hadn't been so obviously injured, Arthur might've gone over and told him off for being such an idiot as to go back into the fire. It was a breach of every single protocol they had, and frankly, the station captain was still mad about it.

More than mad though, he was worried. That wasn’t helped when he returned to the Camelot firehouse to the sound of coughing. He found Lancelot halfway up the stairs, bent over and clutching the rail.

“Shit, Lance, what are you doing here?” He guided the man to sit down on the stairs.

"Failing to climb the stairs, apparently," Lancelot replied, badly out of breath. He leaned sideways to rest his head against the wall.

"I mean, I'm surprised you're out of the hospital already." At that, Lancelot just shrugged. He looked exhausted and his skin was an ashy pallor, though that may have been due to the soot that still clung to it. "Let me go get you a glass of water." Patting Lancelot on the shoulder, Arthur went upstairs to their little kitchen. In it, Gwaine and Merlin were eating cereal. They were much more subdued than usual, which made sense for Lancelot's best friend and the man who had stumbled around flirting with him for years.

"Gwaine, I thought you said they were keeping Lancelot overnight," Arthur remarked as he retrieved a glass from the cupboard.

"They're not? How do you know?" 

"Because he's here."

No sooner had the words passed Arthur's lips than Gwaine jumped to his feet, surprisingly agile still for a man who had been on duty for a shift and a half and had already responded to one major fire. He plucked the glass from his commander's hand and was off before Merlin could point out that he didn't know where Lance was. Nonetheless, when Merlin and Arthur followed him out of the kitchen and looked down from the top of the stairs, they saw Gwaine sitting beside his friend.

"Why are you here, Lance?" They heard him ask softly. "You should be resting at home."

"My apartment burned down, if you haven't forgotten." The injured man's voice sounded better now that he'd clearly drank some water. "I thought I could rest here, given that I have nowhere else to go."

"I know you always sleep terribly here. You should stay at my apartment. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. Take the key and a cab and I'll meet you when my shift is over."

"That's my shift, remember? You stole it." Lancelot leaned against Gwaine's shoulder, and Merlin and Arthur took that as their cue to stop snooping. They retreated back into the kitchen to gossip about what they’d seen. Normally Arthur tried to refrain from speculation about those under his command, but somehow Merlin, ever the bad influence, always managed to get him talking.

“Looks like this might finally get them together," Merlin said. Arthur nodded.

"I've never seen Gwaine so affectionate with anything except his own reflection." It was an exaggeration, of course, but not by much. The flirty firefighter was always quick to rest a casual hand on a friend's shoulder or offer a reassuring word to a victim of a fire, but this was different. Neither Merlin or Arthur had ever seen him so quietly supportive, so gentle, with another man. Lancelot must have been rubbing off on him.

"It'll be good for them," Merlin said. "It's probably gonna be at least a month until Lance is recovered enough to get back to work, and I can't think of anyone better to keep him occupied."

"As long as that keeping him occupied doesn't involve getting him into trouble," Arthur retorted.

"What's this I hear about getting into trouble?" Gwaine asked as he sauntered back into the kitchen. All trace of his carefulness with Lancelot was gone, replaced with his usual easy attitude and carefree movement.

“Oh, nothing,” Merlin said. “We were just hoping you could avoid getting Lance hurt more while he’s healing.” The EMT said it with a smile, clearly not expecting the reaction he received. Instantly Gwaine’s face fell, his smile disappearing as a hurt expression appeared in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, voice as serious as a house fire. “I would  _ never  _ do that.” His vehemence surprised both Merlin and Arthur.

“Okay. Sorry.” The heaviness in the room at the accusation lingered as Merlin and Gwaine returned silently to their breakfasts. Before leaving the room, needing to escape the air between them thicker than smoke, Arthur rested a hand on Gwaine’s shoulder.

“Remind Lance that if he needs anything, he only has to ask," the captain said, because it was his duty to look after those under his command. "Including if he wants you at home with him. I can figure out another way to fill the roster.”

Gwaine just nodded. "I'll tell him."


	4. Gwaine's Apartment

Upon returning to his apartment, Gwaine discovered that, of course, he had given the only key to Lancelot and essentially locked himself out. Pressing his ear to the door, he could hear the shower running. Although he figured his houseguest wouldn’t be able to hear him, and in any case would probably have to get dressed before he came to let him in, Gwaine knocked on the door to his own apartment. To his surprise, the door was opened soon after, revealing a disappointingly clothed Lancelot, still wearing the "Fun and Fire Safety" t-shirt Gwaine had brought him at the hospital. His tan skin was flushed and his hair clung to his forehead with moisture.

“You’re steamy,” Gwaine observed as he stepped inside. Lance gave him a withering look reserved for his and Merlin’s terrible puns. “I didn’t mean like that.” He could still hear water running, and when he glanced to the side into the bathroom he could see that the room was full of steam from the hot shower. “Driving up my water bill?” he asked.

“I couldn’t- the steam helps-” Lance stuttered, instantly looking worried.

“No, it’s okay, I get it,” Gwaine quickly reassured him. “I’m not mad. If it helps you breathe, go ahead. Although, I’d like to take a shower myself at some point.”

Lancelot nodded. “I’m okay now. I might’ve used up most of the hot water though.”

“That’s alright. I’ll just wait until the tank heats up again then, if you don’t mind the smell of me for awhile.” Stripping off his sweatshirt, Gwaine sniffed it experimentally and opted to throw it across the apartment towards the laundry basket instead of hanging it up beside the door.

“I can’t smell anything but smoke,” Lancelot said softly, following Gwaine deeper into the apartment. The renter looked around for signs that his guest was making himself at home but spotted only a glass of water on the counter beside his tiny kitchen. The bed was undisturbed, as far as he could tell (he never made it, but the blankets looked to be in the same arrangement of mussed as when he left the house), and the couch was still piled with laundry in various states of folding.

“Why don’t I cook something then?” Gwaine suggested. “I’ve got a chicken recipe with apple cider vinegar that smells so strong when it’s cooking. Guaranteed to drive away any other smells. I remember my mom making it three times in the week after I got sprayed by a skunk when I was ten.”

“You don’t have to.” Lance said. “I’m sure you’re tired and I don’t want to be any trouble.” 

“I am tired, but I’m also hungry, and there seems to be nothing else in the fridge but raw chicken,” Gwaine said, quickly closing the fridge after retrieving said chicken before the other man could see that he was lying, “And besides, when is the last time you ate?” They might’ve fed him at the hospital, but given that he said he was still nauseous when Gwaine visited, he might not have eaten since before the fire. He clearly hadn’t taken anything out of the fridge here, or made himself at home at all.

“I guess it has been awhile. But I can make something myself; you don’t have to wait on me or anything.”

“What if I want to?” Gwaine asked suddenly, looking up at Lancelot. At those dark brown eyes, kind eyes, sad eyes. At his mussed hair, the clench of his jaw that said he was in pain, the twitching of his bandaged fingers. “What if I want to take care of you?”

“I never took you for the mothering type.”

"I'm not, but I look out for my friends. You were in the hospital, for Christ's sake; it's not like I'm making a big fuss over nothing. And your house burned down. So let me cook you dinner and then promise me you'll actually make yourself at home here and get some rest? I can tell you're hurting and I hate watching it."

Lancelot must have seen something in Gwaine's eyes because after a long moment, he nodded. There was no more discussion of it and when the food was ready, they both ate ravenously. Lance offered to do the dishes before remembering his bandaged hands, so their plates would have to just sit in the sink until Gwaine got to them in the morning. Before leaving to take a shower, he convinced his friend that the actual mattress would be the guest bed and that he would take the couch. The hot water heater evidently hadn't recovered as well as Lancelot's lungs had from his coughing bout, so the water ran cold quickly. Even so, by the time Gwaine got out of the shower, Lance had escaped the bed to curl up on the couch between piles of laundry. Gwaine had half a mind to pry him off the thin cushions and insist that he take the bed, but he figured Lancelot would not appreciate it, especially with how settled in he looked there.

He wasn't quite so settled when his coughing pulled Gwaine out of bed later in the night. Within a minute, he was standing by Lancelot's side, rubbing his back and shoulder.

“Should I invest in a humidifier?” he asked gently. Lance shook his head, but didn’t have the breath to answer. “Water?” The man shook his head again, gesturing to the empty glass by his feet. Apparently, he’d already drank water, and it hadn’t helped. With how hard he was coughing, Gwaine wondered if he should grab a trashcan in case his shaking shoulders turned into heaves of a different kind. Hopefully he wouldn’t bring dinner back up. Stomach acid would be hell on his already injured throat. “Anything I can do?” Still unable to speak, Lancelot just tugged on his shirt, eventually communicating that he wanted Gwaine to sit down. The man obliged, sliding down behind his friend on the couch so he could continue to rub his back easily. Once his coughs finally abated, Lance sagged back against his chest. “Okay. I’ve got you, doll. I’ve got you.” He held him close, letting him squeeze the arm around his waist and carding his other hand through Lancelot’s hair and holding it against his forehead. He was relieved to find his skin a normal temperature, neither clammy or feverish. Either could be a sign of infection, either in the burns or in his damaged lungs.

“Just take it easy, get your breath back,” he soothed when Lance started to squirm, not letting him go. Giving into it, the clearly exhausted man leaned his head back against Gwaine’s shoulder. "What happened, you just wake up coughing or something?"

"The pain," he explained vaguely, and the way he held his arms slightly away from his body was enough to tell Gwaine the rest. The bandages had gotten all messed up where he must've been tossing in his sleep.

"Need a rewrap?" Lance nodded and Gwaine helped him to his feet and over to the bathroom. "I picked up some burn cream on my way home. We'll get you sorted."

He helped Lance up to sit on the counter, as he was afraid he would pass out if he kept him standing, and began to gently unwrap the bandages around his arm. He rinsed off the old excess cream and patted the burned limb dry gently. Only one blister had broken, up by his hand, which Gwaine smoothed the skin back over before covering it with an antibiotic cream with aloe.

"Here, I've got an idea for keeping the bandages secure. Wait here." He disappeared briefly and came back with a pair of socks and one of scissors. He measured one sock against Lance's forearm before slicing the toes off of it and cutting a hole in the heel. Stretching it so it didn't disrupt the bandages, he pulled it up over Lance's arm, putting his thumb through the hole. "That okay? Not too tight?"

"No, it feels fine."

He leaned forward suddenly and Gwaine, thinking he had fainted, moved to catch him. Lancelot, though, was in full control of his faculties as he kissed his newfound nurse. Deepening the kiss just briefly, Gwaine pulled away.

"You sure? I don't want it said that I took advantage."

"Gwaine, please." He sounded almost desperate and that was all the persuasion Gwaine needed to kiss him back fiercely. He brought his hands up to his neck, caressing along his growing stubble.

"Will you let me shave you?" He asked against Lance's lips after a minute, running a thumb up his jaw.

"I'm not helpless, you know." The gravel in Lance's voice was only partly due to the smoke inhalation.

"I'm not saying you are. I just think it'd be… I don't know, sexy."

"I'm already vulnerable enough right now, and if we're doing this, you should know I'm not into that sort of thing."

"Well then, I'll just have to suffer some beard burn. Though I think it'll look too good on you for me to mind." They both leaned back in and when Gwaine took Lancelot back to bed, there was no debate about who would take the mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry to anyone who was waiting on more chapters of this fic. I know it was marked too have 6 chapters, but the last few weren't really working out and I decided this was a better ending. I might post the other ideas I had eventually, probably in a sequel fic instead of here. Thank you for all the kind comments and support; they are really appreciated. And if you've just found this fic and have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd love to hear what you have to say too!


End file.
